


The Silver Ring

by Goldfinch142



Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Henry Stickmin Series: Infiltrating the Airship, Kid Henry, Rapidly Promoted Executive Rank, Selectively Mute Henry Stickmin, Toppat Civil Warfare Ending | TCW (Henry Stickmin), Toppat Recruits Ending | TR (Henry Stickmin), toppat clan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldfinch142/pseuds/Goldfinch142
Summary: Eight-year-old Henry Stickmin had always been drawn to shiny things. Ever since he could remember, anything that glinted or shimmered would be his entire world as soon as he saw it. His parents were never really around, and he never liked staying in their run-down dirty house anyway, so he spent his days scouring the streets for loose coins and dropped goodies. One day, he realized his hauls were getting less and less satisfying as time went on...so he decided it was time for anupgradein technique. One thing leads to another, and...
Comments: 4
Kudos: 189





	The Silver Ring

_Man, this sucks_ , eight-year-old Henry Stickmin thought sourly one Friday evening, sullenly staring at the day’s haul—a few pennies, a quarter, and a bottle cap. And not even shiny ones. His daily finds were getting worse and worse lately—nothing ever seemed to be good enough anymore. The deep-rooted itch to _collect_ —objects to look at or money to feed himself, since his parents never did—hadn’t gone away at all, still gnawing at his insides like a hungry…something that gnaws. Plopping down on a brick wall by the sidewalk, Henry dangled his legs and looked around, hoping to find something worthy of his collection before having to go back to that gross house that always smelled like that stuff his parents were constantly drinking.

There was a fancy lady with a dog in her purse walking down the sidewalk towards him, high heels _click-click-click_ ing with every step, nose up in the air and looking like she’d just smelled something bad. He already didn’t like her. She wasn’t very interesting, though, so his eyes moved on.

The bakery owner was closing up shop for the night. A guy in a huge coat was sitting in the nearby alley, fiddling with a rock, occasionally looking out into the street. And finally, a couple older kids were arguing about something by the other end of the brick wall. Besides that, the street was empty and there was no loot in sight. _Yet another day wasted_ , Henry mused grumpily, hopping off the wall and turning to lea—

Oh.

_Oh_.

And suddenly the day wasn’t so bad, because a man in a suit, glasses, and hat had just strolled into sight, wearing the most _beautifully_ glittery silver ring he’d ever seen. It was perfect, even better than his shiniest quarter and that pretty gold button he’d found by his history teacher’s desk. He had to have it, he just _had_ to—

—But Henry hesitated. He’d never actually _stolen_ anything before, just picked stuff up off the ground…but the ring would be the perfect centerpiece for his collection…surely the man wouldn’t notice one little ring missing, right?

Gulping and glancing around just in case someone could somehow read his thoughts, Henry decided to try what he’d heard was called _pickpocketing_.

_Or pick-fingering, I guess_.

The breeze blew cool on his face as he carefully shuffled through the grass, trying to get behind the man without him noticing. Finally making it to the side of the bakery, he peeked around the corner at the retreating dark figure, the ring a shining beacon of silver in the semi-darkness, calling to him.

_Almost…there…_

Luckily, the man hadn’t seemed to notice him tiptoeing toward him as fast as he dared. Henry honed in on the finger with the ring, trying to track the movement so he could get the ring off in one quick swipe and run.

When Henry was at last right behind the man, he took a final steadying breath, and his hand shot out for the ring—

—And quick as lightning, the man whipped around and grabbed his wrist, twisting it in an uncomfortable position. The eight-year-old gasped in terror, staring up mutely at the man’s shadowed face, which was staring back down at him with a raised eyebrow. Henry panicked and started thrashing around, twisting and squirming as hard as he could, but he couldn’t break free. He frantically looked around for help, but everyone else had left. They were alone.

“After my ring, boy?” the man asked wryly, adjusting his very tall black top hat with his free hand. Henry didn’t answer, still focused on trying to yank his wrist out of the man’s grip. The man cocked his head thoughtfully. “You have potential, boy. But your technique needs some work.”

_That_ pulled Henry out of his blind thrashing. He went still and slowly risked a glance up at the man, confused. Now that he was closer, he could see that the man wasn’t wearing glasses at all, but rather two monocles. Probably for twice the class. But what he had said… _My technique_? “You’re…not mad?” Henry asked nervously, still not quite convinced he wasn’t about to be tomorrow’s newspaper headline, especially after spotting the handgun in the inside flap of the man’s suit jacket.

“Well, I don’t appreciate you trying to swipe something of mine. But I _can_ respect that you were daring enough to try. Not many scamps your age would be.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “Tell you what,” he said, leaning down, “How about I show you the ropes of basic thievery? The world needs more talented thieves, and I think you could be one of them.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. That would be…great, actually. He could finally start collecting bigger and better things, jewelry and art and other pretty things, enough money for a _hundred_ sandwiches from the drugstore, and maybe make that _itch_ go away for a while. The offer was…nice of him. _Too_ nice. “What’s the catch?” he mumbled distrustfully, eyeing the man.

Surprisingly, the man grinned. “Ah, you’ve already got the instinct! That’s good. Trust no offer that’s too good to be true. Now, on to my condition. Have you ever heard of the Toppat Clan?”

Henry shook his head.

“They’re an organization of thieves, mostly. They take what others don’t need so they can live comfortably without any unfair rules from authority like the police, or government meddling.”

_The government_ …oh, Henry knew about _them_. His parents were always talking about how the government taxed them so much that they couldn’t afford food or new clothes or school supplies, just the bottles and cans of sour-smelling stuff they always drank. (Beer, his mother called it. His father called it _the drink of life_ , so they must need it to live.) His mother had also mentioned something about being “rejected for social welfare”, whatever that meant. Also the government’s fault, from what he could tell.

As for the police, well they were just plain mean. Last year a police officer had come to their school and went on and on about “being a good citizen” and “justice” and stuff, but then turned around and took away a sparkly hair clip Henry had found on the ground, claiming that “it belongs to someone else”, nevermind that the rule was _finders keepers losers weepers!_ Everyone knew that! And that’s not even getting to just last week when he saw a policeman fire a taser at a man who was stealing food for his hungry family and begging the officer to let him keep it, since he’d just lost his job. The policeman arrested him anyway.

_Show me the ‘justice’ in that_ , Henry thought angrily, still feeling sorry for the jobless man and his family. He knew what it was like to go hungry.

Hmm. The Toppat Clan sounded like a pretty good place to be. Henry’s eyes flicked back up to the man’s face, then up to his hat. _Toppat_ … _top hat_. “And you’re a Toppat?” he asked quietly, smiling a little at the man’s second grin of the evening.

“That’s right! Such a perceptive boy. You’d make a great recruit, you know. In fact, that gets right back to my condition for teaching you.” Henry blinked. Sure, the Toppat Clan sounded great, but he wasn’t sure he could just…leave.

At Henry’s hesitant expression, the man quickly added, “I’m not asking you to join right now. Just to think about it. After some practice and experience on your own, we’d be happy to recruit you in a few years if you’re interested. That’s my condition. My teachings, for your willingness to support the Clan. Not even by being a member, if you don’t want to. Just use your new skills to make authority pay dearly, and kindly don’t join anyone who’s against us or steal from us, or I’ll track you down myself. How about it?”

Henry grinned brightly and flashed the man a thumbs-up after he finally let go of his wrist.

“Excellent! Shall we get started, then?”

* * *

_Man, this sucks_ , twenty-eight-year-old Henry Stickmin thought sourly one Tuesday morning, sullenly staring at the military General and a guard conversing on the other side of the helicopter. The same guard that made fun of him at West Mesa Penitentiary, actually. Huh.

The government apparently wasn’t as above kidnapping and coercion as they liked to admit, because the General had knocked him out and thrown him on this helicopter to tell him that if he didn’t infiltrate the Toppat Clan’s airship and get incriminating information on them, they would throw him right back into prison. Henry didn’t have any plans to let them do that; it had been hard enough escaping the first time. Not to mention his deal with that Toppat Clan member all those years ago—he wasn’t averse to picking up the occasional partner, but he wasn’t about to join anyone who was against the Toppats. He was a man of his word.

After the Toppat had given him a crash course in theft, they had done a few simple heists where Henry pickpocketed or swiped some trinket while the Toppat watched. Afterwards, he would go over what Henry did right and wrong, and give him some tips on how to do better next time. Right before he left, he actually gave Henry the silver ring that started it all. While his ‘training’ only lasted a few days before the Toppat had to rejoin the Clan, it was an invaluable foundation to have that slowly escalated from there, from food and baubles to bags of money to diamonds, his targets getting bigger and bigger in scale as the same loot just wasn’t enough anymore. He sold a lot of it, but never the ring, which was thankfully still safely on his finger.

So. It seemed he was going to have to trick the government into thinking he was doing their dirty work until he could escape.

“There’s the airship!” the pilot—Charles, was it?—announced. “Okay, so, how do you want me to bring you in?”

Henry’s eyes fell to the corner where a few items lay, considered his options. He didn’t want to have direct communication with anyone here, so the earpiece was out. There was a giant sticky hand, but quite frankly, he didn’t trust that it would actually stick. The grapple gun, maybe? Perhaps stealth was the best option…

… _Or perhaps not_ , he thought cheerily as he spotted a giant hamster ball, the final item. He could just crash into the airship to _look_ like he was against the Toppats, then explain to them what was going on! It was the greatest plan!

“Okay, cool,” Charles said when Henry pointed to the hamster ball. The thief clambered inside, letting out a yelp of surprise as a section of the floor opened up and dropped the ball into a cannon of sorts attached to the bottom of the helicopter. “Don’t worry, it’s completely safe,” Charles assured him over the loudspeaker. Henry smiled, somewhat touched by his concern. “This cannon was actually built to fire humans, it’s kinda weird. The ball is only to let you break through the glass of the airship. Hold on to your butt!”

The cannon fired, slamming Henry against the back of the ball as it shot towards the airship. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself. A moment later—

_CRASH_.

The ball smashed through the windshield of the airship, slamming down to the ground. Henry just barely managed to stabilize himself enough to take a knee and not be thrown around like a ragdoll.

A Toppat with two hats and gold bling—the chief, Reginald Copperbottom, he recognized from the government’s picture—was running for the far door while his Right Hand Man was shouting, “Go, go, I’ll hold ‘im off!”

Henry promptly ejected himself from the ball and waved around an olive branch. It was a good thing he carried around a bunch of random stuff all the time. He kept holding it up as the chief stopped and stared at him and more Toppats ran into the room. Henry took a deep breath, realizing he would have to speak, and nervously tried to ignore the twenty rifles and handguns pointed at him. “The government sent me,” he said, and immediately wished he hadn’t as every gun cocked. “But!” he quickly added, looking around, “I’m not with them. They think I am, but I’m just here to warn you that they’re trying to find information on you. I’ll leave as soon as I can and never bother you ag…"

Henry trailed off as a very familiar double-monocled Toppat stepped forward, lowering his gun and gesturing for the others to do the same.

“Well if it isn’t Henry Stickmin, my little thief-in-training. Though not so little or in-training anymore, I see,” he chuckled. “You’ve pulled off some impressive stunts over the years, your Tunisian diamond heist being the most so, I’d say. Good work.”

Reginald raised an eyebrow at the Toppat. “Thomas? What’s this about?”

_Thomas. So that’s his name._

“No need to attack him, Chief. He’s just a thief I helped train up a long time ago, under the condition he never do harm to the Toppat Clan.”

Reginald looked at the shattered windshield.

Henry coughed, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled. “Had to make the government think I was working for them.”

“Hmm. Well,” Reginald deliberated, “I suppose if Thomas is vouching for you, then we’ll let you go. Also, you’re paying to replace the windshield.”

Henry nodded in agreement. That was fair enough. Besides, he had a ton of leftover money from selling some of the spoils of a recent jewelry store hit, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

The Toppats relaxed and started trickling out, clearly sensing that the situation was handled. Henry relaxed as well, watching Thomas and another Toppat as they made their way toward him.

“I don’t believe we’ve ever formally introduced ourselves. I’m Thomas Chestershire, and this is my friend Geoffrey Plumb. We’re field agents for the Toppat Clan.” They both held out their hands.

Henry took Thomas’s hand and shook it, then Geoffrey’s, nodding to them in turn.

Thomas’s eyes glittered cheerfully at Henry’s right ring finger. “You kept the ring, I see.”

Henry nodded. “Why did you give it to me, anyway?” he asked curiously. “You didn’t have to.”

The very classy Toppat shrugged. “I just took a shine to you, I suppose. I saw potential, and I’m glad to have seen you live up to it.”

Geoffrey grinned at him, a pipe held between his teeth. “Nice to finally meet ya, Henry! We’ve heard so much about ya.”

Thomas nodded along. “Yes, your reputation does indeed precede you. You know, Henry, you’re still not obligated to join the Toppats. But if you’re interested, you’ve more than proven you have what it takes. Right, Chief? Right Hand Man?”

Reginald nodded thoughtfully. “You do have substantial skills.”

Right Hand Man just grunted and folded his arms.

“So whaddaya say, Henry?” Geoffrey asked. “You wanna join?”

Henry considered. He had thought about seeking out the Toppat Clan to join, but he rather enjoyed working alone. Then again, he did appreciate the mentoring from Thomas and the fact that they weren’t forcing him into anything, unlike those government dogs. (Except Charles. Charles was cool.)

Perhaps it was time to shake things up.

He smiled and nodded, giving Thomas and Geoffrey a thumbs-up.

“Wonderful!” Reginald chirped. “You’ll make an excellent field agent. Since you already know Thomas, perhaps you two and Geoffrey could become a field team?”

The three traded smiles.

“Actually…Dave! Get over here!”

_Dave_? That name sounded familiar. Henry’s eyes widened as another Toppat joined them— _the West Mesa guard that didn’t check the package!_ And he might have seen Dave at the museum too, come to think of it…

Dave stood at attention, wearing a black top hat with the word ‘Security’ on it. “Yes, Chief?”

“This is Dave Panpa. He’ll join you three in your field team as the lookout. I assume that’s agreeable with everyone?”

A chorus of “Yes, Chief”s and Henry’s nod followed.

“Excellent!” Reginald clapped his hands together. “Then it’s settled. We can hold the recruitment ceremony tonight and set up your first team mission.”

Dave had apparently caught Henry’s baffled stare, because he immediately launched into a tirade.

“You’re wondering why I’m a Toppat now when I used to be a security guard, right? Well, your escape from West Mesa got me fired. Even though it wasn’t my fault! The package was already past the security checkpoint when I found it, someone else should have already checked it! And then your theft of the Tunisian diamond got me fired _again_ , even though _that_ wasn’t my fault either! And then the Toppat Clan captured me so they could steal something I was guarding, and _no one came to help me!_ I was so sick of being everyone’s fall guy, so I agreed to join the Toppats, and, well, here we are.”

Henry blinked. Once. Twice. _Okay, don’t have time to unpack all_ that _right now._ “Sorry for getting you fired.”

“It’s cool. My bosses have all been jerks anyway. Except the chief, of course,” he added, nodding to Reginald. “He let me start a security club!”

“That’s…great?” Henry offered, still reeling a little from Dave’s rant but glad he was joining them nonetheless.

“Anyway,” Reginald cut in, “Now you just need a top hat. I think navy blue or black would suit you nicely, perhaps with an ‘H’ for Henry?”

“We should prob’ly get rid of the gove’ment first,” Right Hand Man reminded him.

“Oh, yes, yes. I have some dummies we can use…”

Rank: Toppat Quartet

**Author's Note:**

> Dave being a Toppat security guard was inspired by the Triple Threat Toppats blog on Tumblr! Check it out: https://triple-threat-toppats.tumblr.com/
> 
> Toppat Quartet took inspiration from Rapidly Promoted Executive, Toppat Recruits, and Toppat Civil Warfare.


End file.
